Veterans Affairs Committee on June 1st, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Lobb and Mr. Hillier.

Mr. Gaudet, you have five minutes.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Hillier, I am not trying to play politics, and I am not in the habit of doing so, but when the Conservative government came into power, we had a department and an appeal board. Then, the government created the veterans charter and the ombudsman position. Earlier, you said that we could get rid of the ombudsman position. You also told Mr. Lobb that the relationship between the department and veterans was peachy keen.

There is one thing I do not understand. Why did the ombudsman appear before us on Wednesday and say that things were not going so well? I would like to hear your opinion on that. We had the veterans charter, an ombudsman, and things are fine, but the ombudsman told us that things are not so fine with respect to the issue of the Westminster style of government, about which I have still not received an answer. I asked the question on Wednesday, and I have still not received an answer. I would really like to know what exactly is going on.

I want the truth, because I and Mr. Perron, whom you knew well, were opposed to having the ombudsman report to the department, to the minister, since that is the way it works. If you recall, Mr. Marin, the ombudsman for National Defence, resigned precisely because—that was not in your day, it was during the Liberal era—he had to report to the minister, and it was not working. When the position is under the responsibility of the minister in charge, nothing works. If the person does not do what the minister wants, he or she is relegated to the sidelines, and the files are shelved.

[Keith Hillier]

I would like to go back to the start. I think there's a clarification that's required. If I understood well, I don't recall something about there being an ability to remove the ombudsman. I don't think that was the nature of the discussion.

Let me come at it this way. The ombudsman has been in place now for about a year and a half. It will be two years in November. I think part of the issue, as I see it—and I looked at the testimony that was here last week—is about what I call access to information. If I could, I'll just park that for a second. The fact that there is a difference of opinion on some of the issues around homelessness I think is just one of many issues. There are many issues we are working on together. I think, though, the issue seems to be around access to cabinet information. I think it's well understood in this town that in fact there are various privileges of the Queen's Privy Council and that cabinet information is not open.

The issue of the doctrine of solicitor-client privilege I think is well accepted both in the private and public sector. I would argue that the legal opinion I or one of my colleagues in legal may have gotten, for example, is maybe not overly germane. I would view it that the role of the ombudsman is to identify if there's a problem as it relates to a particular client or in fact if there's a systemic issue with a policy or program. I think that's where the focus is. Understanding what the legal opinion was or who got a legal opinion is not necessarily where I think we need to be. By the same token, we need to go back to the order in council, and the order in council states that.

In terms of the issues that are there, I won't enter into that discussion. I'll leave it, if I could, to the lawyers who may want to debate the word “review” and so on and forth. From that standpoint, I think things are working relatively well with the ombudsman. There's an issue, and these issues will come up from time to time, but as I stated earlier, the good news is that we actually have an ombudsman and we actually have a bill of rights.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

We agreed with the creation of a veterans charter and an ombudsman position. But earlier you said that people were calling to say that they had not received their pension cheque. Why is it that they call the ombudsman instead of the department? Are they sitting on their hands at the department?

How is it that last year, there were 8,000 requests, 2,000 of which remained.... If it is not the department or the ombudsman, someone is not doing their job, unless I know nothing about the public service. I was a mayor for 12 years, and I can tell you that when there were problems, we made sure that the situation did not drag on too long. When someone did not receive their pay cheque, there was a problem.

[Keith Hillier]

First of all, clients will call numbers that they may choose to call. If somebody is calling and saying they didn't get their cheque, for example, it could be simply the fact that their last change of address wasn't processed before the cut-off time for the computer system. It's a very simple thing to fix. Do they need to call the ombudsman for that? No; they can call our 1-800 number. We receive approximately one million calls a year at our national call centres.

I can also point out, Mr. Gaudet, that we've actually created a call centre in Montreal that we just opened in April, specifically to improve the quality and level of service to our francophone clients. It's located in Montreal, so that our francophone clients can now deal with someone who is equipped to deal with them in their language of choice.

Sometimes you have to look at human nature. Of the 5,000 or 4,000, or however many in number the ombudsman has, he himself said that they're not all complaints. Some are looking for information. Some could be inquiring about how to change their address. Also, part of human nature is that some people may feel that the ombudsman has a higher level of authority, so if they don't get the answer they like when they call our national call centre or go to one of our district offices, they think maybe the ombudsman has authority to overrule those decisions.

Clearly the ombudsman doesn't have the authority to overrule departmental decisions. He can point out that he feels that there has been an error made and we will correct that as quickly as possible. That's one of the reasons we have what we call the “hot hand-off”, so that in fact they can actually move the call to a departmental official very quickly.

I think he would say that part of his learning experience with his staff is to know when this is a file that we need to take and investigate or this one is simply somebody wanting to do a very simple transaction and they have the number of the ombudsman that they picked up off a website or they got it in any number of places.

That said, one has to bear in mind that just the very nature of creating an ombudsman is going to create some demand for service. That's good, because at the end of the day, if the clients get the service or the information they need, even though they went through the ombudsman as opposed to coming in to the department official, that's really what's important.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you.

Now we'll go to Madam Tilly O'Neill-Gordon.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Mr. Hillier. It's nice to have you here with us today.

Our other colleague has said, and I'd like to reiterate, how enjoyable our day was in P.E.I. There was one thing through it all, the support and the sincere effort of your staff to do what's best for all veterans, and I was happy to see that.

I also like to hear you say with your positive attitude that the differences will be ironed out. That's the one thing we can do, iron out these differences, because I'm sure we're all on the same track. We're all aiming at what's best for the veterans.

As we all know, the ombudsman has done some visiting, following his cross-Canada tour of homeless shelters. Did the ombudsman provide your department with a report indicating his findings as a result of his tour?

[Keith Hillier]

Not that I'm aware of. I haven't seen such a report. He did make reference to a document when he appeared before the senators some weeks ago, but I have not seen any such report, which probably, given the arm's-length nature, shouldn't be a surprise.

Certainly from my standpoint, he has indicated that he has visited a number of homeless shelters across the country, and I think that's a good thing. If in fact he finds people who may be veterans, who maybe could use our support or our services, we'd be more than happy to be made aware of it. Even if we don't have a particular name but there's somebody who we know is a veteran or could be a veteran, then in fact we will go through our sources.

One of the challenges we have in some Canadian cities is that some of the veterans who are actually there are not the responsibility of the Government of Canada. There are American veterans living in some of the shelters and visiting some of the shelters in Canada. Of course that is not an issue for the Government of Canada. We have a responsibility for those who serve this country, and that is our focus. If somebody has moved across the border and had served in the U.S. military, that is not the responsibility of the Government of Canada except in certain situations where there may be reciprocal agreements around pensions or something. Those are choices that these individuals have made.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

That's good to know.

Your department officials have also performed outreach and have visited different shelters across Canada. Was the department able to assist homeless veterans as a result of the outreach?

[Keith Hillier]

In some cases, yes. In some cases, the veterans were not ready.

I think again it's very important for us to understand that the people living on the street live in a very different world and a very different life from us, who generally have jobs and go to work every day. In some cases, we have made contact with veterans through our outreach. In some cases, we've been able to get them into a program. And in some cases, they've skipped, given their very transient nature.

I had a homeless veteran last week who presented at the Vancouver district office. He actually came to the office and we were able to work with him. Now, he told us that he was in Calgary the week before, and the week before that he was somewhere else. So that's the transient nature. Sometimes when you make that connection, they move. Now we're working with that veteran in Vancouver. We've also been working with the Royal Canadian Legion poppy fund. We've been looking at issues of housing for the individual. So this person may stay in Vancouver, or he may vanish and show up in maybe Halifax in a month's time. That is the transient nature of the population. But certainly we have been able to make some contact.

I would suggest to you that one of the most effective ways is really through the peer support program. You know the military family is a very tight-knit family. If you talk to some of them, you talk to somebody who may have been with the Van Doos or with the Princess Patricias, they have organizations beyond that of the military. It stays with them, I would say, for the rest of their lives. They want to take care of each other.

So we talk to these organizations. For example, if it's somebody from Halifax who's a former naval officer who is having difficulty, they can persuade that person to come forward to the department, or not necessarily go to the department.... That's why you need to understand the peer support. It's not about coming to a Veterans Affairs office. It may be about going to a Tim Hortons and having a cup of coffee. It may be about going for a walk along the street, just to try to get the connection to say, “I understand your suffering. I understand your suffering because I went through it myself. But the reality is that there are people who can help you.” But like many addictions, the person has to want to be helped, and that's part of building that trust and that connection.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Madam O'Neill-Gordon. Sorry about that; your time has run out.

Thank you, Mr. Hillier.

Now on to Mr. McColeman for five minutes.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for coming again. It was delightful to be in Charlottetown and to see the level of commitment there to the veterans among you and your staff.

Rightfully so, when the ombudsman came, there were some issues he brought to the table. It brings up a lot of questions. Probably I have a lot of learning to do, so my questions may be more to being educated about what you were ideally looking for in an ombudsman when this position was created. What were you looking for in terms of the overall engagement of that individual?

[Keith Hillier]

If you look at the order in council, which really gives the ombudsman the authority, I can speak to it somewhat, having been the executive responsible for making recommendations to government on this particular file.

The reality is that the ombudsman really operates on two levels. First is the situation of an individual case. Somebody goes to the ombudsman and feels that he or she has not been treated by the department in accordance with the Veterans Bill of Rights. In other words, the person hasn't been treated fairly in the review, or in fact has been denied a service or benefit. Or it could be that the person may feel that the case manager hasn't behaved appropriately. There's a whole range of things. On an individual basis, somebody wants to bring to somebody's attention that he or she is not happy with a decision or an activity of the department.

Then there's the wider, what I would call systemic, level. On review of the various cases the ombudsman would see.... For example, if 50% of your inquiries were related to a particular type of health benefit, you might say that you would like to talk to the department, because half the work is coming from that. Maybe it's a misunderstanding of a health benefit, or maybe there's a computer glitch. He can actually step back and sort of say that there is the individual case, but he's seeing a lot of cases like that, so he needs to understand. It also may be in terms of talking to veterans through the various kinds of outreach he does and through veterans organizations. Also, the veterans ombudsman has been equipped with an advisory board. Members of the advisory board would give him advice as to what they're seeing and hearing.

Tomorrow I'm going to be at CFB Gagetown, and I've been at various bases across the country: Valcartier, Edmonton, Cold Lake, Halifax, and Esquimalt. You can actually go and talk to the base commanders and ask them how it's going and ask them what they're hearing from the men and women who are serving their country. You can ask them to give it to you straight. It's nice to hear from them what you are doing well. But I like to hear the areas of concern as well--not that I am the ombudsman, but I am in the service business. So we have a common playing field where we all are at the end of the day.

If the ombudsman were here this afternoon sitting next to me, I think we would both say to you that we're all here for the veterans.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

That was so evident in Charlottetown. What was really surprising, in my observation, was that the system is there entirely for the veterans, unequivocally. There are layers of appeal in casework, the layers they go through.... I forget the name of the gentleman who was the head legal counsel there, but he said that, essentially, when he hires new lawyers to come in, they ask how anyone can ever be denied. They're surprised that there's even one person denied a claim.

I'm interpreting the ombudsman to be, then, a further layer of adjudication, if you want to call it that, or an advocate for the veterans.

[Keith Hillier]

Yes.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Would it be fair to characterize it that way?

[Keith Hillier]

I wouldn't characterize it as adjudication. I would characterize it as a further review or a further advocate.

The ombudsman does not have the authority to overturn the decisions of the department, but he does in fact have the authority to bring items to our attention. It's another level of review. We have many. We have the Bureau of Pensions Advocates. We're the only country in the world that actually provides lawyers, at the expense of the crown, to represent veterans in their applications before the Veterans Review and Appeal Board.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. McColeman. You're out of time. Time does fly.

Now we're on to Mr. Stoffer for five minutes.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Hillier, if you're going to Gagetown tomorrow, and you want to meet with some folks, I can give you the names and the numbers of a bunch. They're called Military Widows on a War Path. They would love to meet with you to discuss Agent Orange, but I'm sure you'll be too busy for that.

There's a question from Michel, and I want to thank the researcher very much for this. I'll just read it to you: “The mandate indicates that the staff of the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman shall be employed pursuant to the Public Service Employment Act and shall be within the Department. Are the members and staff of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board within the Department?”

[Keith Hillier]

No. The actual members of the board are GICs, the same as the ombudsman. The staff of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board are staff of the board. Without getting into all the mechanics of it, the quick answer to the question is that employees, other than GICs of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board.... When you step back from it, they're all part of the portfolio called veterans affairs. I'll be here to discuss this with the committee on Wednesday. The portfolio called veterans affairs is made up of distinct organizations called the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. That's why the reports on plans and priorities are signed by the chair and the deputy.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

You said that DVA assists in the hiring process for the veterans ombudsman's positions that he requires. How many positions does he have now under the veterans ombudsman umbrella? How many people actually work there?

[Keith Hillier]

I couldn't answer that. I think it's between 30 and 40, but I don't have the exact number.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

If it's possible, we'd like to get a more accurate figure.

[Keith Hillier]

Certainly.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

I know Colonel Stogran has military service, but how many people working for the veterans ombudsman have a medical, military, or legal background? You probably don't know that.